Frontside

Frontside and backside are surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding and Aggressive Inline Skating terms that are used to describe how a person approaches an obstacle or performs a certain trick. In Aggressive Skating, frontside and backside are types of grinds.

The names frontside and backside originate from surfing where they mean the direction the surfer is facing while surfing a wave. If the surfer is facing the wave, he or she is surfing frontside, otherwise he or she is surfing backside. The terms forehand and backhand are synonyms for frontside and backside but they are only used in surfing.

kateboarding

In skateboarding, the definitions are confusing and are used very inconsistently depending on what kind of trick is performed. A trick that involves rotation (such as a 180 ollie) is called frontside if after the first 90 degrees of rotation the skateboarder is facing forward. The exceptions to this rule are fakie tricks, for which the definition is reversed. For example, a fakie frontside 180 (also known as a frontside half-Cab) looks like a nollie backside 180 but it is referred to as frontside because it is essentially a frontside 180 performed while going backwards. The fakie exception does not cover switch tricks, which are named like regular tricks.

For rotations a simple rule is:
Regular Footed Skaters - Clockwise is Backside for Nollie, Fakie and Regular Stance but Frontside for Switch, Counter-Clockwise is Frontside for Nollie, Fakie and Regular Stance but Backside for Switch
Goofy Footed Skaters - Clockwise is Frontside for Nollie, Fakie and Regular Stance but Backside for Switch, Counter-Clockise is Backside for Nollie, Fakie and Regular Stance but Frontside for Switch

For slides and grinds, the trick is called frontside if the skateboarder approaches the obstacle with his chest facing it. This is somewhat counterintuitive in tricks like the backside board slide where the skateboarder approaches the obstacle with his or her back towards it but then turns 90 degrees and slides forward. The fakie exception mentioned above does not cover these tricks.

If you're in doubt what to name a slide/grind imagine doing the trick on a ramp. For instance the boardslide on a ramp is a backside move, though you'll have to ollie frontside to get into it on street obstacles.

nowboarding

In snowboarding, frontside and backside are different depending on whether you're talking about an air trick, or a rail/box trick.

In the air, frontside means that you turn the front of your body into the rotation first and backside means you turn your back into the rotation first. For example, a left foot forward rider would rotate anti-clockwise to throw a front 360 and clockwise to throw a back 3.

On the rails and boxes, frontside and backside refer to whether the rail or box is behind them or in front of them when they ollie onto it.

Aggressive Inline Skating

In Aggressive Inline Skating, frontside and backside are used to describe the way the skater's feet are positioned when grinding on an object. For example, if a skater jumps on to grind a ledge with both feet landing on the h-blocks (the grindable area in the middle of the frame), with the toes facing the ledge, the skater is doing a frontside grind. Their whole body will be facing the object.

A backside is much the same, although when the skater jumps on, they will be landing with their back to the object, and with their heels facing the ledge.